Grey Oak Publishers India is a recently set up Indian Publishing House backed by a group of young writers, avid-readers, designers and entrepreneurs of Indian origin. Our vision is to provide a platform for Indian writers and bring their work to the market. The intention is to focus all our efforts in bringing quality Indian writing to the Indian market.

Under the Grey Oak imprint we aim to publish contemporary mass-market Indian Fiction. The Chiron imprint will focus on travel writing, memoirs, biographies and inspirational stories which otherwise do not fall into the mass-market Indian Fiction genre. With our Silverfish imprint, the aim is to bring books targeted at a younger audience.

Grey Oak is headquartered in Bangalore with an office in Mumbai, and with our vision we hope to make our place in the hearts and minds of readers as a publisher of quality Indian content.

Please Note:

We do not accept submissions for poetry, compilation of short stories by individual authors and novels/ novellas under 35,000 words. Please do not send us such submissions.

We have a full list till March 2013 and we are currently not accepting any submissions for full length novels till 1 December 2011. We currently do not accept direct submissions from authors, and we request you to send these to Writer's Side (www.writersside.com) or Siyahi (www.siyahi.in), leading literary agents with whom we share a close working relationship. We would prefer being approached by one of these agents, if they agree to represent your submission.

Authors can however choose to submit to us directly only if -

You are a well known personality with credible achievements in film, theatre, music, sports, culture or in corporate India;

Your blog is ranked among the top 100 blogs in the country;

Your work has been published in the past by Grey Oak Publishers or Westland (including the imprints);

Your work has been published in the last 5 years by Penguin India, Harper Collins India, Zubaan, Hay House India, Amaryllis, Hachette India, Random House India, Roli, Rupa & Co. or Picador (including the imprints of these publishers); or

You work with a national newspaper or a leading national magazine or lifestyle magazine or you have worked with one of these in the last 3 years as a full time employee or as a regular features contributor.

For those who meet the above criteria, please send us your full length novel submissions as per the guidelines below, after 1 December 2011.

Submission Guidelines:

Here are a few questions and answers that will help you understand the process of submission and evaluation of manuscripts at Grey Oak.

Given the genres we focus on, we do not publish cookery, business, self – help, religion and philosophy books, technical and scientific research studies/monographs and papers, and medical/engineering/management books. A manuscript sent on these areas would automatically not be considered for publication by us. Yes, we’re going for the delete button on these ones.

What should my submission contain?

Your submission to us must contain

A detailed synopsis (no more than 2 pages/ 700 words);

A chapter outline (no more than 4 pages/ 1500 words);

The first three chapters in case of novels and other narrative non-fiction. For short stories you should send in five sample stories; and

4. A one page Resume telling us about you. Tell us about any published work in the past, relevant writing experience (writing codes in an IT Company or an Audit Report or your personal diary since childhood doesn’t make the cut). We aren’t interested in your GPA in college or your CAT/ GMAT score or the list of your favorite authors in alphabetical order.

All submissions should be sent as Microsoft Word documents, please use 11.5 font and ensure the paragraphs are double-spaced. Please do not use a fancy font, use of Arial, Times New Roman and Calibri is preferable. Ensure that your name and contact information are clearly stated on the first page of your submission. If the above guidelines are not adhered to, the submission will be rejected and a revised submission of the same or another submission from you will not be evaluated at for a period of 12 months.

Please do not send material in floppies and CDs. Please name your file with the name of the book and the name of the author. E.g. ‘TheLastQueen_SmitaKhanna’

Please do not spam us with jokes, forwards or pictures of yourself and famous people you might know, else we’ll be happy to reject your manuscript.

What happens after I’ve made a submission? Can we meet and discuss my submission? How long would it take for you to evaluate
my submission?

Hold your breath; we will revert to you within 6 weeks. If we haven’t written to you in 6 weeks, please write a couple of lines reminding us about your manuscript. On receiving a reminder we should be able to revert to you within 2 weeks.

If your submission is found worthy and is being considered by us, we will request you to please send in the full manuscript. Do not send the complete manuscript unless asked for by us.

On receiving a full manuscript in reply to our request, we will consider the same in detail covering structure, writing style, contents, potential audience and market viability. This could take a further 6 to 8 weeks. But we promise to get back to you within 8 weeks.

Owing to the fact that we have a small but committed team to evaluate submissions, meeting and discussing individual proposals is unfortunately not possible.

If we receive your manuscript and ignore you, you’re free to blog and tweet about us.

Whom shall I contact during the process of evaluation?

The editorial team will be in touch with you if your manuscript is being considered. Please do not call us, we’ll find a way to stay in touch with you, if necessary.

What are the terms and conditions—royalties, marketing support, number of copies, distribution network—under which my book will
be published?

Terms and conditions pertaining to royalties, target market, launch plans, number of copies, distribution network—these are all decisions which are taken only on final acceptance of a book for publication. Should your manuscript be accepted, these will be discussed at the appropriate time while discussing your royalty agreement.

Can I send my submission again if I have been rejected once?

Sure, but not to Grey Oak. Maybe it can be sent to someone else in the business.

Also, if your submission has been rejected by Grey Oak Publishers, please do not send us another submission for 12 months from the date of the rejection. If you do, such a submission will be ignored.

Can I send my submission elsewhere while I have submitted it to you? Can my manuscript be evaluated by Grey Oak and another
publishing house simultaneously?

Yes, of course, you’re free to do so. However, it would be nice if you could inform us if you are signing a royalty agreement with another publisher while the manuscript under evaluation with us. This is so that we could stop evaluation of your submission.

You are free to ask us to stop evaluation of your manuscript at any stage before we have communicated our decision.

Note: If you are still unclear about the stated process, go back to the start of the page and read again.Top